About
Brad Parscale served as the senior data and digital operations adviser for Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign. After he began working for Trump in 2011, his firm, Giles-Parscale, designed both Trump’s exploratory campaign site and later the official 2016 campaign site. Parscale also handled small-donor fundraising, direct mail, and polling for the 2016 Trump campaign. He was appointed the reelection campaign manager in 2018, but was fired in 2020 when he was partially blamed for Trump’s low poll ratings.
Parscale founded Red State Data and Digital as a means of working with the America First super PAC during the 2018 midterm elections. Federal election laws ban coordination between a campaign and a super PAC, but Parscale denied breaking any laws and managed to escape prosecution even though Red State accepted close to $1 million from the America First Action PAC.
Parscale suffered a psychological breakdown in September 2020, but later relaunched his consulting firm, saying that he plans to branch out and create a new data analysis business for conservative politicians. As of fall 2022, he appeared to be helping the oil and gas industry dump the blame for ongoing power grid problems in Texas on renewable energy solutions.
The Big Lie
- Parscale said he was aware of a Trump campaign strategy of stoking fears of voter fraud, although he pointed to Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis as the primary cause.
- Parscale told the House Select Committee investigating the insurrection that “as early as July” 2020 Trump was already planning to declare victory even if he lost.